A bitter battle is playing out in the Western Cape High Court over who can speak for a First Nations tribe in the controversial R4.6 billion Amazon development in Cape Town.
The development, at the confluence of the Black and Liesbeek Rivers where Khoi people were first dispossessed of their grazing lands, has been fiercely opposed by the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoin Indigenous Traditional Council with litigation led by Tauriq Jenkins.
In November last year, the council and Observatory Civic Association sought an interdict against construction on the site pending a review of the decision taken by the City of Cape Town and provincial authorities. Thein the High Court by Deputy Judge President Patricia Goliath on 18 March this year.
He made much of Jenkins having named |Xam Bushman leader Petrus Vaalbooi as someone opposing the development. Yet, Dunn had an affidavit from Vaalbooi stating he had never met Jenkins and in fact supported the development. Thus, Katz said, fraud had been perpetrated against the court. Katz stated Jenkins’ papers before Goliath were “replete with this kind of invective” which was Jenkins’ “modus operandi”.
He also argued the council represented by Dunn claimed to have deposed him as Supreme High Commissioner, and also to have deposed Paramount Chief Aran, at a Goringhaicona National Executive Council meeting to which neither he nor Aran were party. He said they had irregularly appointed themselves and had no right to bring legal action on behalf of the council.
Goliath, in her judgment, had stated: “The fact that the development has substantial economic, infrastructural and public benefits can never override the fundamental rights of First Nations Peoples” who have a “deep, sacred linkage to the development site”. Advocate Ron Paschke, for the City, said elements such as the inclusion of Khoi symbols and road names within the precinct, an indigenous garden, amphitheatre, and First Nations media centre meant heritage would be promoted.
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